Orville and Wilbur Wright somehow persevered through one failure after another in their attempts to get their new flying machine off the ground. If you’ve ever sat on an airport terminal floor with thousands of other people waiting for flights to resume, you may have wished they hadn’t. But they did. On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville achieved the first successful manned flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle. After some very public failures, it was their moment of triumph. The brothers were so excited that they ran to the nearest Western Union office and wired their sister Katherine, “We did it [stop]. We have actually flown in the air 120 feet [stop]. Will be home for Christmas [stop].”

Katherine was elated. She showed the telegram to the newspaper editor, who read the message and was impressed. His story appeared in the next edition. It was headlined, “Orville and Wilbur Wright Will Be Home for Christmas.”  

Like that editor, we can miss the point, especially when Christmas is involved. This Advent Season, we want to look at the point of it all – what Christmas is really about – and we are going to begin with the first scene in the Christmas story, which takes place nine months before Bethlehem and its overcrowded “inn.” We are going back to what the Church calls “the Annunciation” – the day when Mary was told that she would give birth to God’s Son, the Messiah.

Look at verse 26: “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee.” Luke was writing to Gentile readers for whom the name Nazareth would mean nothing. Nazareth was a little town, undistinguished by association with any great men or women, and few Gentiles would have ever heard of it, so he informs his readers that it was located in Galilee.

God sent the angel Gabriel to a young woman who was engaged to a descendent of King David, a man named Joseph. There are some important words to note in the 27^th verse. First the word, virgin. Any reader familiar with the Old Testament would immediately recognize an allusion to the messianic prophecy of Isaiah: “This will be a sign unto you: the virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and he will be called Immanuel.”[1]

Bible scholars point out that the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7 can signify any young, unmarried woman, and not just a virgin. That is true enough, but that that is what Luke intended to convey is beyond doubt. Look at Mary’s question in verse 34, “How can this be,” (that is, “How can I have a child?”), “since I am a virgin?” Though the NIV uses the word “virgin” to translate both verses, a literal rendering of verse 34 runs, “How can this be, since I know not a man?” To know in this context is an ancient euphemism for having sexual relations. Mary was a virgin.

The other word to look at in verse 27 is the one the NIV translated, “pledged”. It is a perfect tense verb meaning to betroth. In Jewish culture, a betrothal or engagement was as binding as marriage. If a man wanted to end an engagement, he didn’t just ask for his ring back. He had to file divorce papers! We know from St. Matthew that this was just what Joseph had decided to do, because he believed Mary had been unfaithful to him. She told him she was pregnant, and he knew it wasn’t his baby.

Apparently, the meeting between the angel and Mary took place indoors, because verse 28 says (literally), “And entering to her he [the angel] said…” Do you remember what happened when this same angel Gabriel entered the temple to deliver a message to the priest Zechariah? The text says Zechariah was “startled and afraid.” Mary doesn’t seem to be either. While she was “troubled,” it was by the angel’s words rather than his presence. This was an altogether extraordinary young woman.

“The angel went to her” (v. 28) “and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored!’” The Douay-Rheims Version, following the Latin Vulgate, translates, “Hail, full of grace!” which is, of course, the language of the “Hail Mary” prayer. But the idea here is not that Mary is so full of grace that she is able to dispense it to others, but that she herself is graced by God—is highly favored. Even contemporary Catholic versions translate it that way.

Verse 29: “Mary was greatly troubled (or “very perplexed,” as in the NASB) at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” Mary was troubled and wondered what… Now, that’s beginning to sound like the rest of us. We are frequently troubled by what: What is going to happen? What does this mean? What am I supposed to do? Apparently, the mother of our Lord, blessed among women (as Elizabeth calls her in verse 42), also wondered about these things.

Verse 30 is a restatement of the greeting in verse 28: “You have found favor with God.” We are liable to think that those who have favor with God will have an easy time in life, but it doesn’t really work that way. Having favor is not at all synonymous with being pampered. Those most favored by God are those from whom God expects most. Noah found favor with the Lord and was given a hundred years of labor. Mary, who is highly favored and is blessed among women, is promised a soul-piercing sword.

Now, look at the second part of the angel’s message. It answers the what question. Verse 31: “You will be with child and will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” Now, we have the what: this young Jewish girl will conceive and bear a Son who will be a great and powerful king, and will be called the Son of the Most High.

That sounds wonderful, but there is a problem. There usually is. The problem is not with the content of the message, the what – that’s great – but with the fulfillment of the message, the how. “How can this be,” Mary asks (this is verse 34), “since I am a virgin?” Or, as it is in the Greek, “since I have do not know a man.” That is, “I’ve not had sex.” The “What” leads Mary to ask “How?” God’s favored people often find it so. The what can be so unexpected, so unmanageable, that they cannot get a handle on it. So, of course, they ask “How can this be?

The Lord says to Moses, “I am going to free my people from slavery in Egypt. So, you, Moses, go and do it.” That was the what, and it left Moses in shock. “How can a failure like me do this? How is anyone even going to believe me? How can I, of all people, go to Pharaoh?” When the Lord tells Samuel what – “It is time to anoint my new king” – Samuel says, “How can I anoint the king? When Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” To Nicodemus Jesus says, “Your only hope of even seeing the kingdom is to be born again.” That was the what. Nicodemus’s response: “How can this be?” Jesus says to Philip, “Feed this massive crowd.” Immediately, the good Philip’s mind asks, “How?” “Feeding this crowd would take eight month’s wages!”

But whenever God tells us what, he already knows how. And when he shares with us the how, we will find that it is His way, not ours. Who would ever have guessed that God would free Israel from Egypt the way he did, with an army of frogs, gnats, and locusts? Who would have thought that he would send his people to conquer Jericho with trumpets and ram’s horns, or use the farmer Gideon and his three hundred men to defeat an invading army? He does things his own way. Look at the answer to Mary’s how question, verse 35: “The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God’.” The how was something that no one would have guessed. The Virgin will conceive by the direct and miraculous intervention of God.

I wonder what Mary thought of that answer. We moderns have somehow got the idea that ancient people could believe in virgin births without much trouble. They were, after all, unenlightened, uncivilized, credulous innocents. But that is nonsense! Mary was no more likely to give credence to virgin births than you are. Nor was her fiancé, Joseph, who planned to call off the engagement when he heard about the pregnancy. I think Mary must have been expecting a different kind of answer, something like: “You’ll marry Joseph and you will soon bear him a child, and will live happily ever after, as befits the mother of a king”—a Hallmark movie ending. That’s what we would expect. It was not what God did. His way was completely unexpected.

The angel understands how hard this is to believe and helps Mary resolve her doubts. This is verse 36: “Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” The angel does not go into the technical aspects of miraculous conception, mitosis, and cell division. He knows that what Mary needs is not instruction, but assurance. Some of you older folks remember the song “It is no secret what God can do.” The second line is, “What He’s done for others, he’ll do for you.” That is how the angel encourages Mary to trust God. He says, “Are you worried that God cannot handle the how? Just look at what he did for Elizabeth! That was impossible, too, but what is impossible with people is a lead pipe cinch for God.”

That verse, verse 37, reads literally, “Because with God every word is not impossible” or, smoothing it into English, ” Nothing God says he will do is impossible for Him.” If God says it, he will do it.

Mary takes him at his word, which is the essence of faith. “I am the Lord’s servant,” she says. “May it be to me as you have said.” Here is a shining example of faith, a beautiful model of the submission that we also are called to offer to God. But when Mary said yes, do you think she had a clue about what she was getting herself into—the rumors, gossip, ostracism, and hostility? Instead of the beautiful wedding young girls dream about, a quick and private ceremony. Then compelled to relocate to a new community. And that was all in the first nine months. Unwelcome in Joseph’s hometown, alone at the birth of her son. And as if that were not enough, when things finally settled down, the family was again uprooted and forced to flee as refugees to Egypt. But even that does not touch on the great pain that faithful Simeon predicted would come: “And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.” Did Mary know what she was getting into when she said yes to God? Not a chance. Will we know what we are getting into when we say yes to God? Certainly not. But we don’t have to.

You see, Mary was able to take God at his word and yield to his will because she knew the answer to a more important question than what or how. She knew that answer to the question, Who? We get all frazzled with the what and how whenever we fail to ask, Who? Mary knew Who. Look at her famous song, called the Magnificat, which begins in verse 46 with “My soul praises the Lord,” or “My soul magnifies the Lord.” She knows who is at work in her life. He is the Lord. He is, verse 47, the savior. He is the one who, verse 48, is mindful of our state. (One thinks of David in Psalm 8:4: “What is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that Thou carest for him?”) Mary knows her God is deeply concerned about his people. What about you? Do you really believe that God cares for you? That he wants what is best for you? Or do you feel like you are on your own?

There is more. Mary’s God is not only mindful, He is masterful; he is the Mighty One, verse 49. He wants what is best for us – that goes to his character. And he is able to bring it about – that goes to his ability. He performs mighty deeds with his arm. He brings down rulers, verse 52. He is sovereign. Mary knew all this. Do you? If your God cannot do what he wants to do, if he is not strong enough to govern the universe or caring enough to govern your life, your God is too small. You must come to David’s conviction: “That you, O God, are strong, (you do what you want), and that you, O God, are loving (what you want is always our good).[2] You will never be able to take God at his word, you will keep stumbling over the what and the how, until, like Mary, you can answer the question, Who?

Now, there is one more question that can plague us and, unanswered, can keep us from the obedience of faith: The question, “Why?” Mary does not get deeply entangled in “Why?” because she knows Who. She gives the why question a brief answer in verse 55: “…to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.” Why? Because he said so. He keeps his word. Why is not a big problem when you know Who.

But when you don’t know Who, Why can ground you into dust. Why, God, did you allow this to happen to me? Why did you let my wife suffer this illness? Why let the business I work for close down? Why make me the way you did? Why? Why? Why?

Glenn Chambers was a young man from New York who was planning on working with the Christian organization, Voice of the Andes. It had been his dream to serve God in the lives of South Americans through Christian Radio. He was on his way to fulfill that dream when the Avianca Airline flight he took from Miami to Quito crashed into a mountain outside Bogota. Glenn, the entire crew, and all the passengers were killed.

Before he left the Miami Airport earlier that day, Glenn decided to write his mom a note. He had no paper so he picked up a scrap of advertisement from the floor that had the word WHY printed in large letters across the front of it. He dashed off a quick note to his mom, stuck it in a mailbox, then got on the ill-fated plane.

A few days later, after she heard about the plane crash, an envelope with Glenn’s handwriting was delivered to Mrs. Chambers. She opened it to find the word WHY in large, bold print, staring up at her. The jarring echo of her own thoughts must have stunned her. But Mrs. Chambers did not get stuck on WHY because she understood WHO. The sovereign one who works out all things according to his plan – that’s Who. The Caring one who is concerned with our eternal well-being – that’s Who. The Mighty One who has the power to do whatever he chooses – that’s Who. He is too kind to do anything cruel and too wise to ever make a mistake, though he is too deep for shallow creatures like us to understand.[3]    

But he is not too far to hear us, or too busy to come to our aid. He has come. And he did so by a route we could never have imagined: via the virgin’s womb. He has taken our humanity on – and into – himself. And he will allow nothing to separate us from God’s unending, unstoppable love.

[1] Isa. 7:14

[2] Ps. 62:11

[3] William Peterson, How to Be a Saint While Lying Flat on Your Back. Quoted in The Tardy Oxcart by Charles Swindoll. Nashville: Word Publishing, C 1998. Pp. 245-246